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To: billorites

Of course, if plants grow faster, they take more CO2 out of the atmosphere. But our friendly agenda-driven scientists didn't mention that.


3 posted on 05/30/2006 1:05:07 PM PDT by dirtboy (When Bush is on the same side as Ted the Swimmer on an issue, you know he's up to no good...)
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To: dirtboy
Of course, if plants grow faster, they take more CO2 out of the atmosphere.

I was peripherally involved in an ag experiment once where the seedlings (iceburg lettuce) were put under a transparent tent and the atmosphere inside the tent was enriched in CO2 to 5% by volume CO2 (about 12 times current atmospheric concentration IIRC). Tenting the lettuce allowed three crops in the same time it took to produce 1 crop in the normal atmosphere. Increased CO2 is hoovered up by plant life.

34 posted on 05/30/2006 1:37:48 PM PDT by lafroste (gravity is not a force. See my profile to read my novel absolutely free (I know, beyond shameless))
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To: dirtboy
Of course, if plants grow faster, they take more CO2 out of the atmosphere. But our friendly agenda-driven scientists didn't mention that.

Most of which is released back into the atmosphere by fungi or fire (the rest stays in soil).

IMO the fertilization effect is the only real impact of increased atmospheric CO2. The consequences can be beneficial in some cases (crops grow faster), and deleterious in others. The latter case is not well understood.

Open air lab studies at the USDA predicts that pine trees grow up to 65% faster under the current 360ppm concentration than they did under the historic 290ppm concentration prior to industrialization (which is pretty close to what ring studies suggest). That's great for lumber and paper production, but it may well be bad for forests. Because increased CO2 also reduces drought stress in trees, more seedlings survive, which packs up the forest full of young, fast growing, and scraggly trees. Because the growth response to additional CO2 is non-linear, that means the system's response to singulaities is too. We have no idea what that portends for the usual humanly-induced fire cycles to which forest systems became habituated over the last 10,000 years.

88 posted on 05/31/2006 6:24:19 AM PDT by Carry_Okie (The environment is too complex and too important to manage by central planning.)
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